Story 1: President Trump and Coronavirus Task Force Addresses The American People — Senior Citizens Over Age 60 With Serious Underlining Existing Medical Conditions Including High Blood Pressure, Heart Disease, Cancer, Decreased White Cells, Diabetes Are At Higher Risk For COVID -19– Overall Risk Is Still Low For All Others — Videos

Early information out of China, where COVID-19 first started, shows that some people are at higher risk of getting very sick from this illness. This includes:

Older adults

People who have serious chronic medical conditions like:

Heart disease

Diabetes

Lung disease

If a COVID-19 outbreak happens in your community, it could last for a long time. (An outbreak is when a large number of people suddenly get sick.) Depending on how severe the outbreak is, public health officials may recommend community actions to reduce people’s risk of being exposed to COVID-19. These actions can slow the spread and reduce the impact of disease.

If you are at higher risk for serious illness from COVID-19 because of your age or because you have a serious long-term health problem, it is extra important for you to take actions to reduce your risk of getting sick with the disease.

Get Ready for COVID-19 Now

Have supplies on hand

Contact your healthcare provider to ask about obtaining extra necessary medications to have on hand in case there is an outbreak of COVID-19 in your community and you need to stay home for a prolonged period of time.

If you cannot get extra medications, consider using mail-order for medications.

Be sure you have over-the-counter medicines and medical supplies (tissues, etc.) to treat fever and other symptoms. Most people will be able to recover from COVID-19 at home.

Have enough household items and groceries on hand so that you will be prepared to stay at home for a period of time.

Take everyday precautions

Avoid close contact with people who are sick

Take everyday preventive actions

Clean your hands often

Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing, or having been in a public place.

If soap and water are not available, use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol.

To the extent possible, avoid touching high-touch surfaces in public places – elevator buttons, door handles, handrails, handshaking with people, etc. Use a tissue or your sleeve to cover your hand or finger if you must touch something.

Avoid crowds, especially in poorly ventilated spaces. Your risk of exposure to respiratory viruses like COVID-19 may increase in crowded, closed-in settings with little air circulation if there are people in the crowd who are sick.

*This list is not all inclusive. Please consult your medical provider for any other symptoms that are severe or concerning.

What to Do if You Get Sick

Stay home and call your doctor

Call your healthcare provider and let them know about your symptoms. Tell them that you have or may have COVID-19. This will help them take care of you and keep other people from getting infected or exposed.

Get medical attention immediately if you have any of the emergency warning signs listed above.

What Others can do to Support Older Adults

Community Support for Older Adults

Community preparedness planning for COVID-19 should include older adults and people with disabilities, and the organizations that support them in their communities, to ensure their needs are taken into consideration.

Many of these individuals live in the community, and many depend on services and supports provided in their homes or in the community to maintain their health and independence.

Older adults at higher risk of COVID-19 impact, doctors say

COVID-19 Update: Symptoms of COVID-19

Why new diseases keep appearing in China

Coronavirus: Doctor says high blood pressure a major death risk

Of a group of 170 patients who died in January in Wuhan about 50% had hypertension

Published: March 09, 2020 20:39

While there’s been no published research yet explaining why, Chinese doctors working in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the virus first emerged, have noticed that infected patients with that underlying illness are more likely to slip into severe distress and die.

Of a group of 170 patients who died in January in Wuhan – the first wave of casualties caused by a pathogen that’s now raced around the world – nearly half had hypertension.

“That’s a very high ratio,” said Du Bin, director of the intensive care unit at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, in an interview with Bloomberg over the phone from Wuhan. He was among a team of top doctors sent to the devastated city two months ago to help treat patients there.

“From what I was told by other doctors and the data I can see myself, among all the underlying diseases, hypertension is a key dangerous factor,” said Du, one of the most respected critical care experts in China. “Though there is no research published on that yet, we believe hypertension could be an important factor in causing patients to deteriorate, leading to a bad prognosis.”

Understanding the course of the disease and identifying individuals at greatest risk are critical for optimizing care for a global contagion that’s killed more than 3,700 people since emerging in China in December.

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Answers may lie in studying the large pool of patients in China, where more than 15,000 remain hospitalized although new infections have slowed dramatically. The disease turns critical in 6% of patients and deterioration can happen very quickly.

“We’ll keep an eye on old people and those with high blood pressure. They are the key focus,” said Du.

Besides the hypertension factor, Du’s other insights into treating the disease are:

Move aggressively to ventilate

Du said that doctors should not hesitate to escalate measures for patients facing respiratory distress, as organ failure can set in quickly after. That means doctors should intervene aggressively with invasive ventilation measures – inserting a tube into a patient’s throat or cutting the throat open to create an airway – when low blood oxygen levels can’t be improved by less invasive measures.

Almost half of the patients who require invasive mechanical ventilation end up dying, but most of those who recover are those who were put on invasive ventilation early, said Du.

“Patients need to use invasive ventilation as early as possible, there’s no point of doing it late,” he said.

Respiratory therapists – doctors that specialise in ventilation and oxygen treatment – are becoming all the more important in treating patients critically ill with Covid-19 as they are more knowledgeable and can fine-tune ventilators to suit patient conditions.

No ‘Magic Bullets’ in drugs

There is growing anticipation over drugs being developed to treat the virus, with investors adding billions to the market value of pharmaceutical companies testing treatments now. But Du said drugs alone cannot save patients, especially those in severe condition.

The experience of SARS, the epidemic 17 years ago that sickened almost 8,000 people, showed that most patients can be cured without a specific anti-viral drug, said Du. And the abundance of antibiotics has not prevented deaths by bacterial infections, he added.

“When there’s a virus infection, we hope there’s a drug that can kill the virus and change the clinical outcome. But there’s no magic bullet.”

Instead, teamwork among specialists and nurses in intensive care units can be more crucial in keeping patients alive, he said. “An ICU doctor should work like a conductor in an orchestra to provide life-sustaining treatment while taking into consideration different specialist views,” he said.

Threat of re-infection

Reports that people who have recovered and been discharged from hospital later test positive again – and even die from the disease – have ignited fears that the virus can somehow re-emerge.

Du said that patients becoming re-infected again within days of leaving the hospital makes no sense “theoretically” as the anti-bodies in their bloodstream generated from fighting the disease do not disappear so quickly, although they don’t necessarily stay forever.

“What we need to look at in terms of those who tested positive again is concerns over the authenticity of their negative results,” he said. For example, samples taken from different areas of the same patient could test differently depending on where the virus resides.

Test kits made by different manufacturers could also have inconsistencies that impact test results, he said.

Coronavirus: Italy now in complete lockdown | DW News

Italy expands its quarantine to the entire country as coronavirus cases and deaths surge

Italy will expand the lockdown of the Lombardy region to the entire country, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said Monday.

People throughout the country should not leave their homes other than for work or emergencies, Conte said.

He added that all public gatherings will be banned and sporting events suspended.

A man wearing a protective mask passes by the Coliseum in Rome on March 7, 2020 amid fear of Covid-19 epidemic.

Alberto Pizzoli | AFP | Getty Images

Italy will expand the lockdown of the Lombardy region to the entire country, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said Monday as Italy’s case count surged, making it the country with the most COVID-19 cases outside of China.

People throughout the country of 60 million should not travel other than for work or emergencies, Conte said. He added that all public gatherings will be banned and sporting events suspended. The decision was made to protect the most vulnerable people in the country, he said, and the measures will take effect Tuesday and last until April 3.

“The right decision today is to stay at home,” Conte said. “Our future and the future of Italy is in our hands. These hands have to be more responsible today than ever before.”

The nationwide lockdown is an expansion of quarantine measures rolled out over the weekend that applied to an area of the country that encompassed about 16 million people.

Schools and universities all over the country will remain closed until April 3, he said, but public transit will remain operational. All schools in the country were previously closed until March 15. He also said all restaurants and bars across the country will have to close at 6 p.m.

The announcement marks the most extensive efforts taken by a government outside of China to curb the spread of COVID-19.

“We don’t have any time. The numbers are showing that there has been a significant growth in infections, people in intensive care and deaths,” he said. “Our habits have to change right now. We must give things up for Italy.”

Italy also reported a surge of 1,807 confirmed cases nationwide, bringing the total to at least 9,172 confirmed cases, which is the largest daily increase in Italy in terms of absolute numbers since the contagion first came to light on Feb. 21.

While the spread of the virus is slowing in China, where it originated in December, it’s picking up pace across other parts of the world, including Italy. World Health Organization officials said Monday it’s reassuring that the virus appears to have been controlled in China and other countries such as Singapore. However, the virus is now present in more than 100 countries around the world and global cases have surpassed 100,000.

“It is in our hands. … In many countries, it will get worse before it gets better,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead of WHO’s emergencies program. Roughly 93% of the global cases are concentrated in four countries: China, Korea, Italy and Iran, WHO officials said. “Absolutely, we see a light at the end of the tunnel, but how quickly we get there depends on what countries do.”